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Essay about mother to son by langston hughes
Langston hughes and thematic tendencies in poems
Langston hughes analysis
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Tacks, splinters, and torn up boards. Doesn’t this seem like a wonderful place to live? For the mother in the poem “Mother to Son” this was her everyday reality. Unlike most people there was no one there to help her when she fell down or lead her in the right way, she was always working for everything she had in her life. The hardships of life are represented by a dark beat up staircase in the poem “Mother to Son” by Langston Hughes. Throughout the poem Langston uses powerful symbolism, diction, and form to show how someone coming from nothing can still come out on top. Throughout the poem the author references a beat up staircase which represents life and and its hardships. “Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair” symbolizes how she wasn’t …show more content…
The powerful diction in the poem sets the tone for the over meaning of the poem. “Splinters” representing the troubled times which stuck with her through her life like a splinter under skin. “Bare” means that there was no cushion to the problems that came to her. She had to face the whole problem at once without any help. “Turnin’ corners” or to change her direction in life in order to come out on top in the end. Throughout the poem the speaker's diction accentuates her persistence to live and end atop all the problems. The form of the poem represents the ups and downs of her life, if one were to turn the poem sideways the good times are longer lines and the hard times are shorter lines. “Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair” is one of the longer lines due to the fact that she is talking about what good life could have been for her like the beauty of a “crystal stair”. The shortest line is one word, “Bare” representing the stark reality of her existence. Another short line is “And splinters” which stands for the painful moments of her life that have stuck with her. The form of the poem shows that the last line being the longest represents how happy she is to have overcome her painful
Another fitting quote from the text is something the mother says at the end of the poem, ¨So boy, don’t you turn back. [...] Don’t you fall now For I’se still goin’, honey, I’se still climbin’, And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair¨ (Hughes lines 14-20) This shows the Mother's purpose in telling this story. The mother says to the son, using her stair metaphor, to keep persevering through life, as she had.
Women are equated with water and the greatness that it possesses. In both poems Hughes displays African-American’s view of women and how they the key to maintaining a family. R. Baxter Miller states “her symbolic yet invisible presence pervades the fertility of the earth, the waters and the rebirth of the morning.” (35) Women are like rivers, they continue to flow, even when they cannot be seen. In Mother to Son the speaker reminisces on what his mother told him, which shows how powerful a woman really is. Water is also a very powerful source and contributes to everything. Just like water women contribute to life and the upbringing of children. The Negro Speaks of Rivers states “My soul has grown deep like the rivers” ( Norton Line 4, 2027.) In that one line Hughes demonstrates the likeness between women and water. Females contribute to the strengthening of one’s soul. Water is used as simile to compare the depth of the water, to the human soul.
These lines demonstrate the stage of adulthood and the daily challenges that a person is faced with. The allusions in the poem enrich the meaning of the poem and force the reader to become more familiar with all of the meaning hidden behind the words. For example, she uses words such as innocence, imprisonment and captive to capture the feelings experienced in each of the stages. The form of the poem is open because there are no specific instances where the lines are similar. The words in each stanza are divided into each of the three growth stages or personal experiences.
The author of “Mother to Son”, Langston Hughes, displays the attitude of hopefulness in the poem to show that life will not be easy for the son, but he should never give up because the mother did not. The author uses literary devices like figurative language, imagery, and diction. By using these literary devices, Hughes creates a sympathetic mood in the poem in order to emotionally draw in the reader.
She also did many activities such as spinning, weaving, keeping the house up and also nursed the sick, which could relate to the time period this poem is taking place in also. The intent that the author was trying to get across is one that, people could live happy lives in a very simplistic way, such as Lucinda did. In his poems, Masters used free verse patterns to make his subjects seem more natural. There are no historical or literary allusions to this poem. Although she barely includes any similes or metaphors in her poem, there are a few.
Everyday Use and Good Country People are short stories with similar themes. Can an attitude from one of the daughters have an effect on both the mother and daughter’s life? The Topic called my attention due to being the eldest daughter in my family. Dee and Momma link to the connection I have with my mother. Dee, the eldest daughter, is seen by momma as insubordinate. The same way I feel my mother sees me. Dee and Hulga change their names in order to prove a point. Joy changed her name as a tool to rebel against her mother, Mrs. Hopewell. Dee changed her name to express to Maggie and her mother a new culture, causing her mother to insinuate that Dee is rejecting her identity and heritage. Both relationships between
First, the author uses Figurative language to develop the theme by the mother uses a metaphor to describe her life and how difficult it was. It says, “Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair. It’s had tacks in it, And splinters. And boards were torn up, And places with no carpet on the floor—Bare.“This shows the author use Figurative language to develop the theme of You have to rise above the obstacles because life is going to throw obstacles at you and you have to try to avoid them. This shows the theme because instead of going back down the staircase where there are no problems you have to push through to get over the problem. Second, the author uses Symbol to develop the theme by using the staircase that represents life and life is hard and there will be a ton of thing that try to push us down and just try to stop us It says, “ I’ve been a-climbing’ on, And reachin’ landings, And turnin’ corners, And sometimes goin’ in the dark Where there ain’t been no light. “This shows the author used Symbol to develop the theme of You have to rise above the obstacles because the mother kept going non-stop. This is important to notice because there will be a ton of thing that try to push us down and just try to stop us. To, sum up, the author of “Mother to Son” revealed the theme through Figurative language and
...represent the stages of one’s life. She focuses on the most extreme sense of ends-death, and rejects it as final. What the poem arrived at is that some aspect of life or form of existence continues after death.
What exactly constitutes a perfect family? Eternal love of parents and siblings? The short stories, “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker and “I Stand Here Ironing” by Tillie Olsen reveal the intricate relationship between the mother and the daughter. In “Everyday Use”, Walker initiates the story with the narrator waiting for her daughter Dee’s visit. When Dee arrives, she tells her mother that she changes her name to Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo and insists of taking the quilt. The narrator refuses to let Dee take the quilt because the quilt belong to her other daughter, Maggie. In Tillie Olsen’s “I Stand Here Ironing”, the narrator is having a conversation with the teacher of her daughter Emily. As the narrator is ironing, she thinks back over her
staying the course. In the poem “Mother to Son” a mother tells of her persistence through life’s obstacles, encouraging her son not to give up.
A son who is visiting his father in the hospital narrates the poem. In the beginning of the poem, the reader is greeted by the line “I have just come down from my father”(Dickey line 1). This stanza leads into the nature of the poem. It can be interpreted that the son is grieving and that “coming down” is a metaphor for the son’s belief that his father has reached a spiritual point, and is starting to rise above him, as if reaching the afterlife in heaven. This can only be deducted after grasping the style of the poem. Upon first read, the reader would simply deduce the stanza’s literal meaning: the son has gone down an elevator and is now on the street. After further observation, it should be noted that the same line that begins the poem also ends it, which confirms the writer’s intention for it to be figurative.
“Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is broken winged bird that cannot fly.” -Langston Hughes The struggle in America that African Americans face throughout America’s history is a saddening story where it can apply to any type of people facing the same problems of inequality. The poem I, too and Mother to Son are both similar with the message that it represents but different in the way the message is said. Mother to Son highlights the struggles that Americans who are poverty stricken may face.
Form and meaning are what readers need to analyze to understand the poem that they are evaluating. In “Mother to Son”, his form of writing that is used frequently, is free verse. There is no set “form”, but he gets his point across in a very dramatic way. The poem is told by a mother who is trying to let her son know that in her life, she too has gone through many frustrations just like what her son is going through. The tone of this poem is very dramatic and tense because she illustrates the hardships that she had to go through in order to get where she is today. She explains that the hardships that she has gone through in her life have helped her become the person that she has come to be. Instead of Hughes being ironic, like he does in some of his poems, he is giving the reader true background on the mother’s life. By introducing the background, this helps get his point across to the reader in a very effective way. In this poem there are many key words which help portray the struggles that the mother is trying to express to her son. The poem is conveyed in a very “down to earth” manner. An example of this is, “Life for me ain’t been a crystal stair (462).” This quote shows the reader that the mom is trying to teach the son a lesson with out sugar coating it. She wants her son to know that throughout her life has had many obstacles to overcome, and that he too is going to have to get through his own obstacles no matter how frustrating it is. Her tone throughout the poem is stern telling the boy, “So boy, don’t turn your back (462).” The poems tone almost makes the reader believe that the mother is talking to them, almost as if I am being taught a valuable lesson.
Then, she says, “we paused before a house that seemed a swelling of the ground” (lines17-18) as a metaphor for her grave. Her welcoming tone continues as she uses a house, which isknown to be a friendly environment, to describe the place she is buried once she dies.Throughout the poem, there is a definite rhythm scheme which helps keep the poemsoothing. Rhythm is very important because it dictates the direction; whether it is a positive ornegative direction. When there is a nice rhythm it keeps the flow in a nice harmony which showsthe poem is meant to have a positive attitude. The first and third line in every stanza are made upof eight syllables, four feet, and the whole poem uses the basic iambic meter. This furtherintensifies the poem by helping create a flow. The use of rhymes and slant rhymes also give thepoem a flow. "Me" rhymes with "immortality" and, farther down the poem, with "civility" and,finally, "eternity." There are also slant rhymes like "chill" and "tulle" which helps balance out therhythm. Dickinson also capitalized nouns, which intensified the structure to help the rhythm ofthe poem. Capitalization makes the words stand out more which emphasizes their importance.Those dashes have a
The speaker discusses her trip with death in a very calm manner. The speaker describes how “death” drove the carriage, which was very slowly, as if he was in no hurry to get him, the speaker, and “immortality” to their destination (line 5). One could assume that the speaker’s death experience was not quick and abrupt, but slow and prolonged. The poem progresses and the different places that the carriage passes by are pointed out by the speaker as well. Instead of dark and dreary imagery, the speaker points out kids playing on a playground, a wide field of unpicked crops, and an orange sunset passing her, “death” and immortality by (lines 9-12). These visuals are very serene, like something you would see on a regular, ordinary day. This part of the poem expresses the journey the speaker has as she ventures to her afterlife. The speaker’s trek into the afterlife has somewhat of a reminiscing feeling to it; she lived a plain, but good life, and now it’s about to come to an end. Towards the very end of the poem, the speaker recalls the carriage stopping in front of her “house,” which is a swelling under the ground (lines 17-18). The lump in the ground is the speaker’s casket, but she does not refer to it as that, but her home. The speaker has come to the realization that she will be here for all of “eternity” and is accepting of that (line 24). However, the symbols portrayed throughout the